How to Make Gluten-Free Cloud Dough

After I posted our Cloud Dough recipe last week, Amy from Kids in the Studio wanted to know if it could be adapted into a gluten-free cloud dough recipe. What a good question!

This isn’t the first question I’ve received about gluten-free recipes since starting this blog, and I realized that I should be more thoughtful about sharing information that can help parents and caregivers provide rich learning experiences for their children. The original recipe is simply a combination of 8:1 flour to oil, so in the spirit of experimentation, I thought we’d replace flour with rice flour and see what would happen.

Gluten-free Cloud Dough Recipe

8 cups rice flour
1 cup vegetable oil
A few drops of Lavender oil (optional)

Mix the rice flour and oil together in a big bowl until the oil integrates into the flour. Add a few drops of lavender oil (or other favorite scent) to give your dough a yummy scent. Place the dough in a big high-walled tray or bin. Children can play with the dough with just their hands, or add scoopers, mixers, and small pots.

If you haven’t bought rice flour before, it’s not inexpensive, and I can see why Amy asked the question! I mixed 2 cups of organic rice flour with 1/4 cup vegetable oil until the oil integrated into the flour, and then shook a few drops of lavender oil into the dough to give it a soothing smell. So far, the main difference I could see is that the rice flour made for a slightly grittier dough, but otherwise it was lovely. The real test would be my kids. I put it in front of my 14 month old, and you can see that she was in sensory heaven. My 3 year old wanted to join in, enjoyed it, and never commented on a weird texture of the dough. As far as I could tell, she didn’t know the difference.

If you make this gluten-free cloud dough, I’d love to hear from you. And if you have a favorite gluten-free recipe to share, please add a link or recipe in the comments.

Experiment with Gluten-Free Cloud Dough

If you don’t have access to rice flour or if you feel like experimenting, try the same ratio of flour to oil with garbanzo flour, gluten-free baking flour, corn flour, potato starch, tapioca starch, or arrowroot starch.
Change the ratio of flour to oil and see what happens, as the suggested flours and starches (above) will combine differently with the oil.

More Play Doughs

If gluten-free dough doesn’t concern you, here are more dough recipes to try:

This recipe for the BEST play dough.

Amazing 2-Ingredient cloud dough.

Glow-in-the-dark play dough

Cloud Dough…Have you heard of it? It turns out that cloud dough is one of the easiest sensory bin recipes around, and it is so rewarding to play with. Even adults will love it. One caveat: it can be messy, so take it outdoors if this is a concern.

How to Make Cloud Dough

When I first learned about Cloud Dough, I knew my 3 year old would love it. The consistency of the dough is lovely to feel and hold. It can be powdery like flour one moment, and then moldable like damp sand the next. This brought HOURS of fun to my home, and maybe it’ll do the same for yours.

Be sure to scroll down for the printable recipe!

Supplies for Cloud Dough

8 cups flour
1 cup oil

How we made our Cloud Dough

We started off with 4 cups of Flour and 1/2 cup of Oil. The original recipe is an 8:1 ratio. I would have enjoyed having the full 8 cups worth, but I didn’t want to deplete my flour reserves, just in case.

Cloud Dough Steps

Scoop and pour the flour into the center of a large tub.
Create a crater in the middle of the flour.
Pour the oil into the crater.
Gently mix it all together.
Enjoy mixing and learning about the properties of the dough as it is, or add small silicone bowls, spoons, or measuring cups to make small structures, hills, or pretend cupcakes.

Don’t worry about writing all this down. There’s a printable recipe at the end of this post!

Watch the video

My daughter took the mountain-making and oil mixing job very seriously. We mixed it with our hands for about 5 minutes until the dough held together when we squeezed it. We could still see some oil lumps in the dough, but it didn’t have an adverse effect on the material.When the dough was thoroughly mixed, we added a healthy dose of lavender oil drops to scent the dough.

Heavenly!

How to Play with Cloud Dough

I find it fascinating to sit back and observe how my kids explore new-to-them materials. The first thing my daughter did was make a wall.

A really strong wall.

Then she crafted the dough into a bakery and soup cafe. Silicone molds are wondrous for activities like this.

She enjoyed picking up and squeezing small handfuls of dough. The texture was phenomenal.

The next day we brought it back out and shared the dough with some friends. And this is where I wished I had made the full 8-cup recipe.

Hoarders 🙂 There was so much scrambling for all the dough scraps, and I found myself patrolling more than I like to. So, if you’re making a batch for more than one child, 8 cups of flour + 1 cup of oil may be the way to go.

Cloud Dough Recipe

Cloud Dough

Recipe Type: Dough + Sensory

Author: Rachelle

The consistency of this dough is lovely to feel and hold. It can be powdery like flour one moment, and then moldable like damp sand the next. This brought HOURS of fun to my home, and maybe it’ll do the same for yours…

Ingredients

8 cups flour
1 cup vegetable oil
Essential oil such as lavender or grapefruit (optional)

Instructions

Scoop and pour the flour into the center of a large tub.
Create a crater in the middle of the flour.
Pour the oil into the crater.
Gently mix it all together.
Enjoy mixing and learning about the properties of the dough as it is, or add small silicone bowls, spoons, or measuring cups to make small structures, hills, or pretend cupcakes.

Notes

The original recipe is an 8:1 ratio and we started off with half the recipe (4 cups of Flour and 1/2 cup of oil) because I didn’t want to deplete my flour reserves, just in case. Turns out that this was such a hit and a full batch would have been equally wonderful, especially after our neighborhood friends wanted to come over and play with us.